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To the proper use of armour-plating, iron ships have become a neces sary condition, and in their construction the principles worked out by our late Vice-President, Mr. I. K. Brunel, by which the different parts of an iron ship are made to contribute to its strength, have be come of great value. Mr. Scott Russell, the late Mr. Miller, Mr. R. Napier, Mr. Samuda, and others of our Members have borne their share in modem improvements in iron ship-building, and with those naval architects who are not yet Members of our body we claim professional brotherhood. No Member of this Institution is likely to overlook the increased power which our Navy has derived from the improvements in marine engines, in which Messrs. Maudslay and Field, Penn, Seaward, Rennie, Lloyd, Stephenson, Ravenhill, Humphreys, and others of our Members have taken so active a part; and the ^crew propeller was first practically introduced and subsequently brought to its present use by the labours of Members of our body. Our Navy now possesses thirty-one iron-clad ships, and eight more are on the stocks, four of the existing ships being furnished with turrets, which are to be supplied to two of the new ones. Admitting that this number represents a formidable force, and that in structural qualities our recent ships are excellent in design and construction, and superior to those of other countries, it must bo remembered that many of our ships are of doubtful strength; and you will probably be sur prised to hear that the sum devoted to the construction of new iron clad ships for the current year does not reach £900,000, being less than one-twelfth of the vote for the Navy, and barely sufficient to build three iron-clad frigates. If an Iron-clad Fleet be proper and necessary, surely this fact merits the gravest consideration. In the construction or improvement of our existing Fortifications, it must be admitted that our profession can claim to have contributed comparatively but little. Our past-Presidents, Mr. Hawkshaw and Mr. M'Clean, have been intrusted with the construction of the found ations for forts at Spithead and Plymouth, of which we hope in due time to receive the records. The use of iron plates for land defences has at present been little more than experimental; various mechanical appliances are however in contemplation or under trial, and iron armour is proposed for many of the sea and river forts, to several of which turrets also will be applied. It cannot be denied that if much money had been laid out on works of this character with the informa tion of only a few years ago, most of that expense would have been wasted; at the same time it may be suggested that improvements may come too late, if they are delayed in hopes of arriving at perfection. Any notice of the principal applications of engineering to the pur poses of national defence would be incomplete without some reference to railways, which have always been expected to have an important bearing upon modern warfare. They were admitted to be of great usq in the movement and concentration of troops in the war in Lom bardy in 1859 ; and in the German war of 1866 the Prussian Govern ment organized a special corps consisting of workmen and railway servants, under the direction of engineers and traffic officers, of which a division was attached to each “ corps d’armee,” to act, assisted by a military escort, in advance of the army, to repair any damages effected by a retreating enemy, to work lines occupied by the army, and, in case of retreat to destroy lines in their rear. Lieut. Hozior, in his admirable account of the Seven "Weeks’ War, admits the value of improved roads and railways in shortening the duration of campaigns, and especially in facilitating the transport of provisions, stores, and a siege train, and in relieving soldiers of heavy loads ; but he considers that the power of railways for the transport of troops has been over-estimated; and that, in an enemy’s country, rail ways have been proved to be of no use for the transport of the troops of the invader, during his advance, as the defending army breaks them up, and they cannot be repaired quickly enough. But, even independ ently of hostile obstructions, he says that experience proves that 10,000 men, equipped for the field, is the most that can bo calculated upon to be moved per day on a single railway; that when the Prussians were concentrating their army for the invasion of Saxony, it was rarely pos sible to send more than twelve trains a day, and that it required nearly ten days to move a corps d’armee of 30,000 men with all its “ train” and baggage; and that even when the Austrian army was in retreat on Vienna, with little “ train,” and no baggage, it took them about six days to move 40,000 men. I cannot but think that Mr. Hosier’s views of the carrying capacity of railways might have been modified by the knowledge of what is done, on the volunteer field days, in this country ; while his opinions on the uselessness of railways in an enemy’s country, are apparently inconsistent with the experience of the last American war. In that war railways and steamboats were found of inestimable advantage: the Reports of General Parsons, chief of rail and river transportation for the United States, show that he considered that the application of steam to transport had modified the art of war as much as the pursuits of peace, and he stated, in 1865, as the result of his experience, that “ it is now practicable, on twenty-fours’ notice, to embark (by railway) at Boston or Baltimore a larger army than that with which Napoleon won some of his most decisive victories, and land ing it within three days at Cairo, 1,200 miles distant, there embark it on transports, and within four days’ more time, disembark it at New Orleans, 1,000 miles farther.” In January, 1865, in the depth of a severe winter, the 23rd army corps was wanted for General Grant’s operations before Richmond; after four or five days’ notice, this force, consisting of 20,000 men, with all its artillery, and over 1,000 animals, were started from the Tennessee River, and moved nearly 1,400 miles in an average time not exceeding eleven days. The distance was about equally divided between water and railway transport, along rivers- obstructed by fog and ice, and over mountains during violent snow storms ; with various interruptions, including thirty hours’ detention from fog in the river, and, at one point, the unexpected delay of trans ferring the troops to boats of a smaller class; the railroad, meanwhile, being in the bad condition unavoidable in the severe winters of North America. Within seventeen days from the embarkation of the first troops on the Tennessee, General Parsons had the satisfaction of seeing- the army quietly encamped on the banks of the Potomac, as fresh as when they started from the Tennessee. During the war, 611 miles of railway in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, 293 miles in North Carolina, and 1,201 miles in the military division of the Mississippi, giving a total of 2,105 miles, were more or less occupied by the United States authorities as military railways, under the direction of General M'Callum; the government staff carrying on all the working of these lines, and repairs of works and rolling stock, and to some extent the rolling of rails, and the con struction of new lines. At an early period a number of workmen, under competent engineers and foremen, were formed into a “ con struction corps,” and stationed in detachments along any railway exposed to hostile attack, and stores were established at intervals, to furnish the necessary supplies of rails, fittings, sleepers, and bridge timber. This corps became at last very experienced in the work of repairing damage. General M'Callum’s reports state that the Rap pahannock River Bridge, 625 ft. long and 35 ft. high, was rebuilt in 19 working hours; that Potomac Creek Bridge, 414 feet long and 82 feet high, was built in 40 working hours; that Chattahoochee Bridge, 780 feet long and 92 feet high, was completed in 4\ days; that between Tunnel Hill and Resaca 25 miles of permanent way and 230 feet of bridges were reconstructed in 7| days, and near Big Shanty, 35J miles of permanent way and 455 feet of bridges in 13 days. The last of these remarkable operations took place on the line by which General Sherman was connected with his base, in his advance from Chattanooga to Atlanta; and, that the Military Railway Depart ment almost entirely through a hostile country, should have kept pace with the march of General Sherman, constructing and recon structing the road in his rear, and ultimately have maintained the supplies of an army of 100,000 men, and 60,000 animals from a base 360 miles distant, along a single line, exposed at all times to the attacks of an active and resolute enemy, is indeed a wonderful example of forethought, energy, patience, and watchfulness. In our own country, there can be no doubt that our railway system is one of our greatest elements of strength for national defence, while, in case of need, the skilled labour usually employed in peaceful constructions might be employed in works for our own protection, and for the obstruction of an enemy. In the year 1860 a proposition was addressed by Mr. C. Manby to Mr. Sydney Herbert, Secretary of State for War, offering the services of several members of this Insti tution for the formation of a Volunteer Corps, which should be ready for such work. The offer was favourably received, but no action was taken upon it until the year 1864, when General McMurdo, then Inspector General of Volunteers, penetrated with the importance of the subject, gave it his best attention; Mr. McClean, our President at that time, and other members of the Council became warmly interested in it, and ultimately, in January 1865, with the support of the Marquis of Salisbury, Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex, Earl de Grey, as Secretary of State for War, recommended to Her Majesty the establishment of the “ Engineer and Railway Volunteer Staff Corps,” “ for directing the application of skilled labour, and of railway transport, to the purposes of national defence, and for preparing, in time of peace, a system on which such duties should be conducted.” This corps, commanded by our Past-President, Mr. Bidder, consists of officers only, who must be Civil Engineers, Contractors, or Railway Officers. Its duties comprise the preparation, for the use of the Government, of reports on the railway transport of troops and their supplies, on the destruction and reconstruction of railways, the im provement of natural obstacles, and the making of artificial ones to . impede the landing or advance of an invading force, and on topogra phical particulars connected with these subjects. These reports are confidential, but I may mention that they already contain much prac tical information with which the officers of the Government have been pleased to express great satisfaction, and that the calculations which have been made, in their preparation, by some of the most experienced railway managers, show that the completeness and the resources of our railway system would enable the whole regular and irregular army of the country to be moved upon any required lines * of defence within a few days. Before concluding, I ask your indulgence for a few suggestions with regard to the future.
